


Agoge

by NortheasternWind



Category: God of War
Genre: Family, Gen, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 22:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14482191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NortheasternWind/pseuds/NortheasternWind
Summary: Atreus wants to know more about Sparta. Kratos isn't sure whether or not to provide.





	Agoge

Kratos catches Atreus elbow-deep in the river, shivering and squinting at something underneath. Kratos waits for him to find whatever it is he is looking for, but scowls as the boy continues to dig in his search. Midgard is becoming colder and colder, and Kratos is not ready to find out if a young god and giant can catch frostbite.

“Boy.”

Atreus clearly hears both the command and the question, but only chooses to respond to one. “Mimir says that in Sparta you have to make your own bed from plants you find in the river. And they don’t give you a knife to cut them out with!”

“Er,” Mimir says nervously.

Something like amusement bubbles up in Kratos’s chest, but it is accompanied by unease— that the boy either believes himself inadequate by Spartan standards, or simply seeks yet another way to know his father better. “That is a trial for children who have never known a fight, boy. And the waters in Sparta are warmer than these.”

“How do you even make a bed out of any of this?” Atreus demands. “I can’t find anything that looks sturdy enough.”

“Different regions have different plants,” Mimir interjects, clearly wishing to rectify his mistake before Kratos chooses to take umbrage with it. “I don’t know that you’ll find Grecian reeds in these waters, little brother.”

Atreus pouts, but removes his ( _tiny_ ) arms from the freezing waters and stands. “It sounds hard. I’m pretty glad you made our beds for us.”

“Dry your hands,” Kratos orders, seeing the boy hesitate to wipe his own hands on his clothes. “The ways of the Spartans are for Sparta. They will not serve you here.”

“They seem to serve you well enough, though.”

“Hmph. _Well enough_.” Kratos disagrees, but has no words with which to explain— if Spartan ways had been adequate in this land of the north, then there would have been no need for him to change. And there is no doubt that he has changed. “But you will be better.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’d enjoy the Spartan education regimen,” Mimir says. “Apparently they kee—”

“Head.”

“Sorry, sorry. I'll just keep my mouth shut— your information will be better than mine, at any rate.”

Atreus jogs back to his father’s side, rubbing his arms. “I want to know what Sparta was like. You said all Spartans are great warriors! So how do they teach you?”

Kratos considers. If this incident is any indication, Atreus will compare his own childhood to that of his father and find himself wanting. But it is also an opportunity to teach him the source of Kratos’s shortcomings, and thus avoid them for himself.

“When I was younger than you,” he begins, “I was removed from my parents and taken to live with other children my age. It was a highly regimented life of exercise and study, and we were frequently underfed so as to become accustomed to hunger.”

“They took you from your parents?” Atreus asks incredulously. “And your parents let them? Oh— I bet your father didn’t care, huh...”

“He did not,” Kratos says sardonically. But he will not allow such thoughts to rule this story. “My mother simply considered it necessary. It was the way of things in Sparta, believed to produce skilled and powerful soldiers, and not to allow it would have been a mark of shame upon her. It was not the product of an absence of love.”

Atreus frowns, making his considering face, but seems to lay his thoughts aside for later. “How can they expect you to get stronger if they don’t feed you though? Mother always said that eating well is really important when you’re younger.”

“It is,” Kratos agrees. “The idea was to encourage us to steal food for ourselves— a lesson in stealth and subterfuge. We were beaten if caught, and so our attempts became harder and harder to detect.”

Atreus looks utterly bewildered. “That doesn’t make any sense to me. Why make a rule that’s supposed to be broken? How are you supposed to know that you’re supposed to break it?”

“You have never been hungry. Truly hungry,” he corrects when he sees Atreus puff up in indignation. “You have never known the constant, gnawing pain that comes with siege or long campaigns. Fear and respect drive your obedience, as they drove ours, but eventually our hunger overcame them both.”

Kratos had been bitter, of course, but even as a child he’d understood that this was a pain all men in Sparta had endured. He had refused to be judged any less than they, had desired strength far more than he desired a life free of pain and hunger—

"I'm not afraid of you," Atreus says, interrupting his thoughts.

That startles Kratos into a laugh, but the assertion is somehow gratifying. "Hah! No, you are not."

"At least that makes one of us," Mimir mutters.

Atreus falls in step beside him as Kratos turns to leave the river behind. “So, you study and exercise everyday, and you don’t get to see your parents, and you’re always hungry.”

“Yes.”

He shifts his weight as he walks. “I’m glad I didn’t grow up in Sparta.”

“As am I.”

Atreus starts and looks up at him. “What? Really?”

“Yes.” Kratos isn’t certain he wants Atreus to know what Spartans think of sickly children— he would have to assure the boy that Kratos would do whatever it took to ensure his survival, and to do that he would have to divulge more information than he was ready to admit out loud. “As a rule, Spartans are molded into unfeeling machines of death and violence. Atreus of Sparta was an exception.”

“Oh.”

The boy falls silent, intuiting what his father cannot say. _I would have you become like him, and not like me._

“Okay,” he begins again, regaining his good mood. “So, if Mother had grown up in Sparta, she would have had to steal her own food and stuff too?”

“No. Only the boys were separated from their families.”

“Just the boys? So what do the girls— oh.” Atreus frowns to himself. “I guess if they kept all the boys together you wouldn’t know.”

Something lodges itself in Kratos’s throat. Calliope had been thin and frail by Spartan standards, constantly falling ill just like Atreus. In the quiet of the night, when she thought no one else could hear, she would approach her parents with quivering lips and ask if she would ever be a Spartan.

“ _It looks so hard_ ,” she would say, tone bordering on whining but laced with real fear. “ _Sometimes I can’t even run!_ ”

“ _No one is born strong_ ,” Kratos would reassure her gently. “ _For enduring your own trials alongside those of Sparta, you will become even stronger._ ”

Even then, when affection came as easily to him as breathing, it had not occurred to Kratos to say _and if you do not, I will love you all the same_.

“No,” he agrees. “I do not know.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. A scholar of Greek history I am not. "Did you get all this from wikipedia" yes I did. I'm just here for the fambly stuff, and since no one has written it yet I had to do it myself!  
> 2\. A God of War veteran I also am not. I'm aware Kratos has (had? do you stop being related if one of you is dead?) a brother and his mom was bewitched not to speak of his location after he was captured, but as I've never played any of the games there's a lot that I don't know.  
> 3\. As a result, if you like this fic but you want it done better/differently, PLEASE DO SO. I WRITE WHAT I WANT TO READ, DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME ACCUSING YOU OF PLAGIARISM OR COPYING OR SOMETHING. I would be ecstatic to read this except better and not written by me.
> 
> Feel free to provide corrections!


End file.
